I dont think people hate CoD as much as they hate some of the players of the game. The vocal minority (the CoDkiddies) are the annoying people who get online and start yelling curses as soon as their parents leave the room.

Art Axiv:Jim reads the Escapist I see. He takes upon some discussed topics to troll everyone with at the beginning - quite funny in my opinion. Also Jim, no, COD didn't invent unlockables in FPS - Battlefield franchise did. Much earlier. Just saying.. not like there is an internet argument to be won.

Irrespective of who invented it first his point was that Call of Duty "popularised" the mechanic. My problem with that is that CoD didn't popularise unlocks because it handled them in a new or particularly good way. It "popularised" them because CoD itself was already crazy popular and it happened to have unlocks in multiplayer. Battlefield handles unlocks in almost the exact same way but we don't see Jim crediting it.

It's exactly like saying Avatar popularized CG. I said the exact same thing as you did in a post before that, and yes, I agree with you Alexnader.

So far I've thought that this guy was fairly obnoxious, but I think it was because there was no background video to go along with it. Not having to stare at him almost yelling into the camera for 6 minutes made me like it a little more. This brought several good points to my attention, as I normally like to look down on COD. And the comment about Activision and the $15 map packs made me lol.

I actually quite liked this episode and you made some fair points but I still wont become a regular view because I just don't really like your style. I get your style, I just don't like it... And you made such an awful first impression, it's really quite hard to shake that off. I will watch a few more before I discredit the show entirely

Firstly, thanks for taking on the "Farmville is ruining everything!!" idea, which I'm starting to get sick of myself.

However, I have to disagree with the main point here. The fact that you immediately started to talk about the online multiplayer is revealing- that's obviously the seat of the Modern Warfare series' appeal. And that's fine. I totally agree that Modern Warfare has improved competitive online gaming. I welcome the fact that many other developers are copying them for their own online components.

My problem with the series is that I don't play shooters online- I'm not good at them and I don't enjoy them- instead when I buy an FPS I'm looking for a compelling single player experience, and Modern Warfare does not deliver that.

In terms of gameplay, I found Modern Warfare to be a dull, tiring slog through an endless corridor of identical shooting galleries. In this regard I absolutely do not appreciate the copy-cat developers- Killzone 3, for example, was a real chore to play at times because it did the same thing. The only reason I kept going was because I enjoyed the games' visual style.

Then there's the story.

The post-nuke scene is interesting. That was a genuinely innovative and compelling moment. So was the bit at the start where you play as the president being executed. So was the airport bit from Modern Warfare 2. But here's the thing: everything else in the narrative is total shit.

After half an hour of playing Modern Warfare I was sick of hearing that the LZ is Hot, I was sick of having gruff military stereotypes scream at me, I was sick of the game trying so hard to convince me that my comrades are Stone Cold Badasses. I resented the fact that I was virtually taking part in what might as well be a representation of a real war occurring at the time where enemy cities are devoid of civilians and invasions are heroic battles against swarms of identical bad guys. I hated the fact that half the time I had no idea who I was fighting or why it even mattered because the game did such a poor job of contextualizing anything happening on screen.

And I'm fucking sick of seeing all that stuff in everyone else's games as well. To go back to the example of Killzone 3, that game had the potential to be so much more. Here you were fighting on an alien planet in the far future. The two opposing sides were made up from whole cloth- they could have been whatever the developer wanted, but instead we just got Space Americans vs Space Nazis. Now the Nazi thing isn't CoD's fault- the tendency for developers to make their villains lazy evil stereotypes goes back much further- but I fully blame CoD's influence on how shallow the story felt. I still have PTSD style flashbacks at the gung-ho "heroic" speeches the main characters start spouting toward the end.

And a personal grief: Bullet Penetration can go fuck itself. Damn Wall Sprayers. It's one thing if they see you run pass a window/door/hole-in-wall, but people who just drop a 200 round mag in to a random wall and wait for the hit markers to pop up pisses me off.

Y'know... when this guy is making points and arguing his case he actually comes across as intelligent, reasonable and articulate.

But then he goes and peppers it with that juvenile strawman crap. It's like a kid in a playground going "nyah nyah nyah". He is not helping his case. Because now when I think of CoD fans, I'm not going to be thinking of swearing 12 year olds, I'm going to be thinking of this guy in his flower hat saying, "Ohhh, all games have to comment on the human condition" in a stupid voice. Which is hardly an improvement.

And yes, I am aware that he does it on purpose and it's not meant to be taken entirely seriously. But at the end of the day, intentionally juvenile and annoying is still juvenile and annoying.

agreed the over acting makes him look like a fat pompous douchebag. a fat pompoud douchbag with a point however. also, black ops wasent so bad? a bit mindfucky possibly, and they did hop all over the place in time, but so do books..

I dislike the advantages (more perks, weapons, etc.) an experienced player has. You covered this in the video and stated that it was not any different than an experienced player in i.e. Quake. I disagree.

A player (let's call him Dave) that gets wrecked in Quake because of him not knowing where the weapons are is going to want to change that by, for example, looking it up on the internet. If Dave still gets wrecked after that, it is the experience of the better player that gives him the advantage over Dave.

If Dave played Call of Duty, weapon spawn locations don't matter too much (except for some FFA gametypes). Of course, Dave gets wrecked. But this time he can't do anything about that because the advantages of the other players are not (only) based on knowledge (weapon spawns) and game experience, but gametime, too. Sure, if Dave is bad at FPSs he gets wrecked no matter what, but Perks/Weapons/Killstreaks are something that he can't do anything about even if he is decent at gaming.

I hope you get my point.

mfG diiebane

EDIT: Also, I don't buy in the hatred towards younger gamers. I'm sure most of us have played games before we were legally allowed to. What gives us the right to deny those players the game? People who bash little kids for playing CoD (and other games) are most likely Hypocrits.

That's what 'noob weapons' are for. Anyone can get kills with the 'noobtube', it's just that other weapons are more effective if you're more skilled.

Very much how men and women of the military defend this nation's freedom overseas, Jim Sterling defends Call of Duty. In many ways, Sterling's cause is more righteous and noble than anything a soldier has ever, ever done.

my one and only complant with COD MW and MW2 is i dont like multiplayer and while the single player experiance is great its far too short. if they added on maybe an hour more to the single player it would probily make my top 5 shooters(not MW2 but thats because of story issuses). now i have to man i love this show so keep up the good work:)

Since COD4, all the call of duty titles have to differing degrees exhibited excellent visuals and gameplay, if not been slightly weak on the story front. COD4 probably stands out as the best game story-wise and is probably thus far the best COD title. However, since COD all the latter titles have sought to improve and evolve COD4's great multiplayer mode. Some of these changes i really like, others not. At any rate, the multiplayer is great fun, i've rarely found spawning to be much of a problem.

COD-kiddies are annoying, and they can be detrimental to the multiplayer experience, although i wouldn't call them a major problem (from my experience as a PS3 player). The fandom may not be good, but i don't hold that against the game itself. As for COD being milked by Activison....COD was never an "artsy" game, it's a pop-AAA title- and at any rate, that criticism should be aimed at Activision, not the game itself.

While it's true that CoD is not the video game equivalent of the plague, you must admit that a lot of other online shooters do things a lot better. I don't hate CoD, but to be honest I've never been able to get into it since the first Modern Warfare. They're not bad.... just not as good as other things I've played.

Well then. He made me not lol but LMAO a couple good times during that episode. Congrats, originally I wanted this series out... Now I am getting a good laugh, agreeing with his points while I am not a CoD fan whatsoever and accepting his strange, self loving persona.

I think either Jimquisition or I, are settling in. I would like to see him argue a topic such as innovation in games. Curious to see what stance he will take and what examples he would use.

I don't play multiplayer anything, so I've no opinion on CoD multiplayer or CoD multiplayers, but I did play the SP campaign of CoD4 and found it severely lacking. It was so bad that I almost didn't bother completing it at all, but fortunately it finished just as I was about to quit it. Normally I'd complain about such a short campaign but in this one case I was relieved. It's the only FPS I own that I've not replayed.

I basically have two (related) problems with the CoD4 SP campaign: 1) respawning enemies and 2) what I like to call "scripting the player".

Respawning enemies suck. Shooters are about shooting things. The whole point of shooting something is that it dies. If the devs bring it back to life mere seconds later then the point of shooting it is almost entirely removed (indeed, much of the SP gameplay is about figuring out where to run rather than what to shoot). This is bad enough in any game, but in CoD it's especially annoying because it ties in with the scripted player problem. "Scripting the player" is what I call it when a game presents an apparent choice to the player (e.g. shoot the guys to the left and flank left, or shoot the guys to the right and flank right, or go down the middle) but only one of those choices is actually viable (e.g. because if you shoot the guys to the left or right and try to flank then they'll respawn before you're halfway to safety). These fake options are just insta-death traps dressed up in pretty graphics and animation.

Fighting through CoD4 I never got the sense that I had achieved anything. The only way to really "kill" an enemy was to pass whatever invisible line caused him to stop respawning - which didn't much feel like a victory to me - and finding the right "tactic" for any given section was just trial and error, not any great tactical planning or quick thinking on my part.

Do I look down on people who like the SP campaign? Yeah, I suppose I do. They strike me as easily fooled. I want games with genuine gameplay depth, but all these CoD players are voting with their wallets for shooters where kills have no meaning or purpose, and even the player's "decisions" are made in advance by the devs.

Art Axiv:Jim reads the Escapist I see. He takes upon some discussed topics to troll everyone with at the beginning - quite funny in my opinion. Also Jim, no, COD didn't invent unlockables in FPS - Battlefield franchise did. Much earlier. Just saying.. not like there is an internet argument to be won.

Irrespective of who invented it first his point was that Call of Duty "popularised" the mechanic. My problem with that is that CoD didn't popularise unlocks because it handled them in a new or particularly good way. It "popularised" them because CoD itself was already crazy popular and it happened to have unlocks in multiplayer. Battlefield handles unlocks in almost the exact same way but we don't see Jim crediting it.

It's exactly like saying Avatar popularized CG. I said the exact same thing as you did in a post before that, and yes, I agree with you Alexnader.

And I agree with you. Wanna fight about it?

Seriously though not all of that post was addressed to you, sorry if it sounded like it was. I should've made a new paragraph. Also I liked your article "Strapped for Cash".

Personally I take issue with any series that offers to sell you essentially the same product multiple times. I've nothing in particular against the gameplay I just hate that one of the biggest and well known franchises in gaming is representative of the industry at its most exploitative.

Also: yes the difference between a levelling system that creates concrete power differences between experienced and new players and something that's part of learning the game are very different.

One progresses at the pace decided by the game designer and gives long-term players and unfair advantage, ontop of being better at the game, the other is part of learning how to play and improving and occurs at the same pace the player progresses at.

Fucks sake this guy is FUCKING annoying. Couldn't fucking watch all of it.Yeah COD is good sure, because most people want action immediately and like the arcade style gameplay. Me not being one of them I hate it.

My opinion of CoD has pretty much been the same since I first played it. It is a decent game with some nice visuals and an average story, the multiplayer was quite enjoyable for a short while. But I never liked it as much as many of those around me. As far as video games go it was decent but when I compare it to other series of as much popularity I can't help but wonder how so many people love it so undyingly.

Jim, I want to say thanks, and that I enjoyed the video. In addition, it's sparked inspiration for me to record and upload another video on a similar subject. Unfortunately, after exporting it, I realized that I now need to rerecord...

ok well COD hasn't been anything new its the same game with differnt weapons and maps. And well paced? the 2 that I played were just bruce willis action flicks; non-stop-over-the-top-action. And you know what? It made every single explosion lose it's impact, because it's happened a thousand times before.

Now COD is just a twich shooter whoever pulls the triger 1st wins. Now you may say that makes it realistic. But if you wanted a realistic game you will die once and then never respawn... ever not in this game, and not in the next.

End of the line COD is a mediocre. Sure it's done somethings that has changed multiplayer i.e. perks. But with it still the same after far too long I'd rather get my hopes up for BF3 not MW3.

THANK YOUall that bullshit hate against COD was getting on my nervesit's like all the gamers mutated to hipsters

but the worst thing is not the other people who look down upon COD players but the players themselvespeople play the game, have a lot of fun with it and then suddenly start to trash it for absolutely arbitrary reasons totally forgetting that they were the ones buying that "shit" and even had fun with it

i barely played any COD but i saw a lot of stuff and read some reviews and it looks really goodif i were into shooters this one would probably in my collectioni find it always very odd when many people are complaining about a game that got to critical acclaim by many many different reviewers

diebane:Also, I don't buy in the hatred towards younger gamers. I'm sure most of us have played games before we were legally allowed to. What gives us the right to deny those players the game? People who bash little kids for playing CoD (and other games) are most likely Hypocrits.

yes when was about 8 i first started gaming. But it was all single player games like Half-life, Unreal, Comanche 3. The first time i played multilayer was a few years later when i was 13 when i played age of mythology.Now 8 year old kids start on multilayer games right off and you have to listen to them drone on about how "sexually active" they are with your mother.

I completely agree with everything you say. but the single player needs to be longer they should lower the price which will never happen.i think we should pay for the multiplayer and the single player separately aka 20 for the multiplayer and 20 for the single player but that's also not going to happen.a even better idea is to not kill the franchise with a new game every year instead make one game every 2 or 3 years that extra time to make the single player more awesome by including perks and weapons that you have to unlock and can use like the multiplayer this will allow you to make the game longer without it becoming boring but that will also not happen and the cod will die. i don't care because your ego just killed me

Well done Jim you have successfully picked a contentious topic; successfully riling both the fan-boys and the haters enough to provoke response that will further promote your show.

I agree with many points, but I'm not a fan of how they're made. If you're going to make a serious point, make it in a serious way. Don't insult our intelligence by presenting it via such a childish method as the flower-hat dude.

In my opinion CoD is a good multiplayer (maybe not BlOps though) and as was mentioned, the perks, unlocks and challenges provide a motivation to continue playing.

The only downside to CoD is that the vocal majority are those "swearing teenagers" (I swear many are barely in their teens...). You rarely meet anyone on CoD who isn't shouting "Noob" or "fag" every 5 seconds. Maybe if this wasn't the case it could lead to the teamwork and tactical gameplay that I wish the game delivered... maybe I'm playing the wrong game.

Some recognition of the dismissal of the notion that people's character can be discerned from the games they play is due though. That has always irritated me.

first game, the modern warfare 1 was a great game. the story, the gameplay was different and unique.however, sequels to that game just copy/pasted same formula with non-original style. world at war, modern warfare 2, black ops. just boring repeats of modern warfare 1.they are just for milking cows.so defending the call of duty series is meaningless.

teebeeohh:you want a good reason why cod sucks?not only has everyone else copied the game

Stop right there.

Why is other people copying the game a reason for CoD sucking? That makes no sense. In fact, it really goes to show the opposite of what you want: nobody would try to copy a game that sucked, because people would have played the original and said "that sucks!". Nobody's copied E.T., Daikatana, or Big Rigs Over the Road Racing.

everybody would have copied daikatana if the game had sold well.games are not being copied because they are popular, games are being copied because they make money and because across all the people who buy games there is only a very limited pool of money that will be spend on games the more money spend buying cod-clones the less money is left to be spend on other games. And because of that we will have more cod-clones because they make more money than other stuff